Morning sickness affects a majority of pregnant women. In fact, some studies suggest that somewhere around 70% of women who are pregnant will experience morning sickness at one time or another during their pregnancy. Typically, morning sickness occurs during the first trimester. Morning sickness generally starts around the sixth week or so of pregnancy, and will typically not last past the 12th week of pregnancy, or the end of the first trimester of pregnancy. In some cases, morning sickness may last into the second trimester, but this is rather rare.

It can be difficult, however, for a woman who has not yet experienced morning sickness to know for certain whether she is having morning sickness. It may be, for example, that she has a stomach virus, or that she ate something that didn’t sit quite right with her digestive system. It is important, then, to be able to identify the common characteristics of morning sickness.

The problem with identifying the common characteristics of morning sickness is that women’s experience tends to be rather varied on this point. Some women, for example, will experience morning sickness all day long. Other women will experience morning sickness, as the name implies, only in the morning. Other women will experience morning sickness in the evenings. Some women will not experience morning sickness every day, while other women will experience morning sickness on an almost constant basis.

The only way to know for certain that you are having morning sickness is to rule out other possible causes of your nausea. Obviously, if you are not pregnant, it is not morning sickness. If your nausea is accompanied by a fever, it is likely that you have a virus, rather than morning sickness. If you experience nausea infrequently, such as less than once a week, it is probably not morning sickness. Eating certain foods, such as fatty foods or spicy foods can, certainly, cause nausea. On this point, you should be careful, however; it may be that these sorts of foods aren’t causing you to be nauseous, but rather that they are triggering your morning sickness. A general rule of thumb is that, if it didn’t make you nauseous before pregnancy and it does now, they you are probably having morning sickness.